1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for event identification, forecasting, and notification, and more particularly, to computerized systems and methods for reporting and forecasting real-time weather information.
2. Technical Background
The importance of weather reporting and forecasting in our daily lives cannot be contested. A large percentage of the people in the United States watch their local evening news on a nightly basis to see the local weather report and forecast. This information may then used to make decisions for the next day, or for the upcoming weekend, such as what to wear, what activity to participate in, what activity not to participate in, what to bring on an outing, etc. Under certain circumstances, such as in the case of severe weather, some people may find themselves in situations where they are making life and death decisions based upon the weather information they have available to them.
To assist local television stations, as well as the national networks, in providing accurate and timely weather reporting and forecasting, the National Weather Service (NWS) maintains a network of radar installations located at approximately one hundred thirty-eight sites throughout the United States. Observers at each of these installations monitor the weather conditions within their area and provide hourly teletyped messages to subscribers, typically through a third party weather service provider such as GTE Contel, a subsidiary of GTE Government Systems. In addition, other services provide lightning strike information on a subscription basis, such as through Global Atmospherics, Arizona, U.S.A.
The weather information provided by any one or a combination of the above services may be synthesized at a local television station into a understandable format for presentation to the public. In general, the meteorological data is gathered at the local television station and combined with image maps of a geographical region to generate a weather image i.e., a graphical illustration of the weather. In addition, the local temperatures for various communities or cities within the viewing area of the station may also be generated on the weather image. A sequence of these composite weather images can be looped to create weather animation. The local television station may then broadcast the weather images to viewers.
Although the current weather reporting and forecasting systems used by television stations and networks have much benefit, they may not provide relevant weather information during severe weather. This is particularly true when it comes to the existence of severe weather which arises quickly without much warning, as is often the case with tornadoes. It is well known that tornadoes and other types of severe weather can strike quickly without much prior notice. The information provided by the television stations and networks regarding these types of severe weather are seldom provided in a real-time fashion and are generally not detailed as to the specific location or direction of the weather front. Therefore, the public is often not given sufficient warning to adequately prepare for the weather in order to protect their property or find a safe refuge for themselves. Moreover, the weather information that is provided is often provided on a county wide basis which, depending on the size of the county, the actual path of the severe weather through a county, and the position of the listeners within the county, may be irrelevant. The listener may consequently become impatient or inattentive, and stop viewing the weather report.
An alternative source of weather information is through weather radios such as the Realistic Weather Radio Alert III, Model No. 12-140, distributed through Radio Shack, a division of the Tandy Corporation. In general, weather radios may provide listeners with prerecorded or live weather updates on an essentially continuous basis. The weather radios receive the weather information updates which are broadcasts by the national Weather Service (NWS) from local transmitters using specific frequencies designated by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). The weather updates usually comprise regular weather information which is prerecorded and then broadcast, except for the issuance of severe weather watches or warnings. In those cases, a prerecorded (or sometimes live) watch or warning message is preceded by a tone (e.g., a 1,000 cycle tone) that is manually activated at the broadcast station. The tone weather radios that are turned on and within the range of the broadcasted signal may receive the tone which activates an audible alarm on the radio. The audible alarm is typically not distinctive as to the whether it is for a watch and warning, nor does the audible alarm indicate the type or severity of the severe weather. The alarm will usually continue until the user pushes an alert key or button on the weather radio. It is noted that NWS personnel are responsible for both manually recording of the audio messages for broadcast and the manually activating of the tone.
What is needed therefore, but presently unavailable in the art, is a system and method capable of broadcasting, among other things, information indicative of a narrowly defined boundary for an event and/or a projected path of an event to a plurality of remote devices that are positioned throughout the area of coverage of the system, and which are each configured to independently determine if it is affected by the event. In a preferred embodiment, those devices determining that they are affected by the event will respond to the broadcast by activating an alert indicator of some type while those devices determining that they are not affected by the event will not respond to the broadcast. Such a system and method should be capable of broadcasting the information in real-time over the entire coverage area of the system, and should include smart devices that perform the alerting function. Each smart device should itself be configured to independently determine if it is affected by the event rather than being instructed from a central location that it is affected. Each remote device should preferably be programmed or otherwise provided with information indicative of its geographic location so that each may compare its known location against geographically coded information provided in the broadcast which defines the boundaries of the event or events. The system should be capable of alerting stationary devices that are positioned, for example, within buildings such as schools and homes, as well as mobile devices such as those carried on a person or positioned in a moving vehicle. While the system and method of the present invention is particularly well suited for events such as severe storms or other weather conditions, it is equally applicable to the dissemination of information pertaining to events such as chemical or other toxic discharges, forest fires, nuclear accidents, and other emergency events where early warning of the event can provide those in harms way with ample advance notice to prepare for the event. It is to the provision of such a system and method that the present invention is primarily directed.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide more relevant weather information.
It is another object of the present invention is to provide site specific weather information.
It is a further object of the present invention is to provide substantially real-time weather information.
These and other objects are provided in accordance with one aspect of the present invention by a system for providing real-time site specific weather information that includes a weather alert manager that receives meteorological data and combines the meteorological data with a geographical grid covering a predefined geographic area to produce storm profiles for the storms within the geographical area, wherein the geographic grid partitions the geographic area into a plurality of cells. A distribution network distributes the storm profiles to remote units that are responsive to the storm profiles. The remote units are configured to process the storm profiles and present real-time site specific weather information based upon the storm profile. The storm profiles may include a cell identifier that identifies a cell of the geographic grid that is affected by the storm. In addition, the storm profiles may further include a storm identifier, a storm type identifier, a list of cells affected by the storm and a presence qualifier associated with each cell identified.
The storm distribution network preferably distributes the storm profiles to the remote units that are associated with the cells affected by the storm. For instance, a remote unit may receive storm profiles for a storm that is currently located within the present cell, or likely to cross the present cell. The distribution network may include means for addressing the storm profile to enable point-to-point distribution to the respective cells associated with a storm. The distribution network may comprise a land-line telephone network, a universal wireless network, a pager network, an Internet, or a local cable television network.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, the meteorological data received by the weather alert manager comprises indications of the storm""s speed, location, direction, and type. Further, the meteorological data may include a severity indicator of a storm. The meteorological data may be provided manually by a user such as someone from an emergency management agency, or automatically by a NexRad attributes data provider, or a combination of both manually and automatically gathered weather data.
The remote units may include an audible alarm that can be selectively actuated to distinguish between a warning alarm and a watch alarm. Further, the remote units may include an audible alarm that is selectively actuated to indicate a storm type. Alternatively, the remote units may include an visual indicator that may be selectively actuated to distinguish between a warning alarm and a watch alarm, and/or a visual indicator that is selectively actuated to indicate a storm type.
The weather alert manager may include means for predicting a path of the storm based upon the meteorological data. For example, the means for predicting a path of the storm may comprise a NexTrac(copyright) computer program from Baron Services, Huntsville, Ala., USA.
In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a method for providing real-time site specific weather information comprises the steps of receiving meteorological data, and combining the meteorological data with a geographical grid covering a predefined geographic area to produce a storm profile for a storm identified in the meteorological data, wherein the geographic grid partitions the geographic area into a plurality of cells. The method also includes the step of distributing the storm profile to a remote unit that is responsive to the storm profile for presenting real-time site specific weather information. The step of combining the meteorological data with a geographical grid to produce a storm profile may include producing the storm profile with a cell number that identifies a cell of the geographic grid that is affected by the storm. The method may further include the step of producing visual and/or audio alarms that can be selectively actuated by the remote units in response to the storm profiles in order to distinguish between warning alarms and watch alarms, and/or the type of the storm (e.g., thunder, hail, tornado, etc.). The method may also include the step of providing a severity indicator of said storm as a part of said meteorological data. Further, the step of combining said meteorological data with a geographical grid covering a predefined geographic area includes predicting a path of the storm based upon the meteorological data.
In another aspect, the present invention relates to an event notification system. The event notification system of the present invention includes a computer system configured to receive data indicative of an event to be warned for and to process the data to define a boundary for an area affected by the event. A distribution site communicates with the computer system to distribute information indicative of the boundary of the area affected by the event to a plurality of devices remote from the distribution site and each other. The plurality of devices communicate with the distribution site to receive the information indicative of the boundary of the area affected by the event and each of the plurality of devices is configured to process the received information to determine if it is affected by the event and to respond accordingly.
In yet another aspect the present invention is directed to an event notification system. The event notification system of the present invention includes a weather alert manager configured to receive data indicative of an event to be warned for and to process the data to define a location of the event. A distribution site communicates with the weather alert manager to distribute data indicative of the location of the event to a plurality of devices remote from the distribution site and each other. The plurality of devices receive the data indicative of the location of the event, and each of the plurality of devices is configured to determine if it is affected by the event and respond accordingly.
A further aspect of the present invention relates to a method of remotely activating a device. The method of remotely activating a device in accordance with the present invention includes the steps of receiving data indicative of an event to be warned for, processing the received data to define a boundary for an area affected by the event, and distributing information indicative of the boundary of the area affected by the event to a plurality of remote devices. Each of the plurality of remote devices is configured to determine if it is affected by the event and respond accordingly.
The event notification embodiment of the present invention provides a number of advantages over other systems and methods currently known in the art. For example, the system and method of the present invention preferably incorporates smart remote devices, each of which independently determines whether it is affected by a given event notification. As a result, the system and method of the present invention is not tasked with determining which one or more of the remote devices should receive an event notification. Instead, the system of the present invention may distribute a single event notification to all remote devices within the systems area of coverage. This information can then be processed by each remote device so that the remote devices themselves may determine if they are affected by the event.
In addition, the event notification embodiment of the present invention reduces system overhead as a database of remote device locations is not required to be maintained and queried by the computer system or weather alert manager of the present invention in order to route multiple event notifications. Accordingly, system operating expenses and maintenance expenses are reduced, as are the number of misdirected event notifications and false remote device activations.
Another advantage of the system and method of the present invention relates to the manner in which an event notification may be distributed. Generally speaking, since a single event notification can be transmitted to the entire area of coverage of the system at a single point in time, an event notification may be broadcast using a Radio Frequency (RF) signal. Since very little information pertaining to the event is necessary for any given notification, the data relating to the characteristics of the event can be processed and transmitted quickly, essentially real-time, and due in part to the low overhead of the transmission, the broadcast itself is extremely short in duration.
Yet another advantage of the event notification system and method of the present invention relates to the additional capabilities of the remote devices. The remote devices of the present invention may be configured, for example, to provide an audible alarm or tone, a visual alert such as a light or strobe light, text messages, graphical displays, and/or voice messages, either live or via some type of pre-recorded wave file. In addition, each remote device may be configured to communicate with a Global Positioning System (GPS) or other location determining device so that each remote device is operative in a moving vehicle or otherwise during transport.
These and additional features and advantages will be set forth in the detailed description which follows, and in part will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art from that description or recognized by practicing the invention as described herein.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are merely exemplary of the invention, and are intended to provide an overview or framework for understanding the nature and character of the invention as it is claimed. The accompanying drawings are included to provide further understanding of the invention, illustrate various embodiments of the invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles and operation of the invention.